Welcome Back! Joanna, Neil and Da7e are back to talk about Game of Thrones again! This week, only a few of the people we love get off a boat and we get our first narrative-changing flashback. This flashback was missing something, though, which leads to everyone trying to pronounce “valanqor.” Sansa, Varrick, and Mance are all majorly off-book and there isn’t a Greyjoy in sight. Cersei’s religious troubles start in a box on the way to the Sept (where nothing on the show can be interpreted from the book correctly, I guess), Tyrion is boxed on his way to Pentos, Jon Snow and Melisandre discuss Jon’s virginity in a box, Sansa is in a carriage (box) with Littlefinger, the dragons are sort of in a box (with magical collars of expanding metal) – Boxes!

Also: Which kind of Truther are you? Is Mance really alive? Is Lady Stoneheart still on the horizon? Cold Hands won’t die? ARE THERE PEOPLE WHO WANT A KINGSMOOT?

Today I was listening to Dave and Joanna’s Thought Bubble podcast and it got me thinking about the characters who are so stubborn and obstinate that we love them for it. We love refusal to bend or change their ways no matter the cost, or even sometimes the logic.

This lead me to think of popular examples, and specifically Ned Stark. Ned Stark, the classic good man, our once-supposed hero, who got his head cut off for doing the right thing. His death sets the tone for A Song of Ice and Fire, and Game of Thrones; that this is a world where good is not guaranteed to win or even be rewarded. Evil is smart, conniving and not self destructive. In fact evil is very good at keeping itself alive. Ned’s death does this and it accomplishes that because Ned is “pure”. Which is why Jon Snow must be Jon Snow and not Jon Targaryen.

Yes he had an illegitimate son. But does he hide this? No, and he takes his bastard son home. Why? Because he feels an obligation to the boy and so raises him. Gives him a father (though not a mother) and siblings to grow up with. Ned could have easily not claimed the boy and left him to die in the woods or in city. Therefore we as an audience can forgive Ned this one sin. Ned remains pure in our eyes and his death sets the tone for the world.

If Jon Snow is actually the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen that means Ned lied to everyone. This is damning to the character of Ned Stark, because that means he lied to Catelyn for almost their entire marriage. That means he did not trust Catelyn, the mother of his children, with his nephew’s life.

Ned having one sin, the affair, can be forgiven since he afterwards acted so honorably and kindly to Jon Snow. Ned having perpetrated the biggest lie that no one, in Westros, was able to uncover is both damning and unlikely. Little Finger or Varas never figured it out? Varas who wants a Targaryen on the Throne never realized that he had a Targaryen in Winterfell? Ned who loved Catelyn never told her the that Jon was his nephew and that they must maintain the lie to keep him safe? These just don’t seem like the actions of the Ned Stark we know.

No I know in the show it is hinting that Jon has royal blood in him. But I think that is because he is Stark, a King of the North.

What do you all think? Is my argument persuasive or I am just blowing smoke?